Household Stories

Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm
collected by Jacob Grimm & Wilhelm Grimm
English translation by Lucy Crane
Published in 1886

I'm taking the course Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World on Coursera, taught by University of Michigan professor Eric Rabkin. The first assigned reading is the Lucy Crane translation of the classic stories collected by the Brothers Grimm.

These stories, written in a Victorian-era translation that predates Disney and all other aspects of twentieth-century popular culture, are essential cultural literacy for anyone curious about the origins of modern fantastical literature.

Most of these stories are very weirdly off-putting because they don't quite follow the structural rules that underlie most modern fiction. These structural rules are so fundamental that I didn't even really appreciate that they existed until a few years back when I read Tales Before Tolkien, a collection of fantasy fiction which inspired J. R. R. Tolkien. Most of the stories contained therein were written in the 19th century, but many were based on far older material that predated the codification of what we think of as modern fiction, so they retained pacing and plot structures that seemed exceedingly odd to my brain.

This is also evident in Household Stories, which tells me that Lucy Crane was probably very faithful to the very old source material (otherwise the stories would likely have struck me as more modern). Possibly the strangest story is 'Mr. Korbes', in which a cock and a hen go to pay a visit to Mr. Korbes. Along the way they are joined by a variety of animals and sentient versions of inanimate objects. When the motley bunch reach Mr. Korbes' house, they beat him to death. No reason is given.

In another story, 'The Dog and the Sparrow', a dog and a sparrow are friends until the dog is run over and killed by a man driving a cart. The sparrow then takes revenge, methodically destroying first the man's livelihood, then his house, then taking his life. The latter two-thirds of the story are nothing but the sparrow's cold-blooded violence described in gruesome detail.

Some assorted other thoughts:

• Inanimate objects seem to gain and lose sentience rather arbitrarily. You know how the dish ran away with the spoon, back around the time of the cow-jumping-over-the-moon incident? Yeah, that sort of thing happens a lot here. Yet an anthropomorphic needle that hitches a ride with a couple of chickens out for an evening ride in their carriage gets transmuted into an ordinary needle in the very next scene with no logic or explanation.
• The world of the Brothers Grimm is profuse with kings and queens. It seems like every few miles down the road a traveler would come across another castle with a whole different king and queen in residence. This is awfully convenient for storytelling. That said, just look at a map of Germany from any era after the Dark Ages and prior to the 19th century, and you'll see that the great profusion of monarchs might not be that far from reality.
• There are evil stepmothers aplenty in these stories. I can't remember any evil stepfathers. (There are stepfathers, but they tend to be inoffensive sorts who fade into the background.) There's got to be some cultural factor at play here.
• Everything you ever heard about the violence of pre-Disney fairy tales is entirely true. In 'Aschenputtel', the Grimm Brothers' version of Cinderella, one of the Evil Stepsisters chops her own big toe off to fit into the discarded shoe. My own favorite scene of horror is probably the one in 'The Almond Tree', in which an Evil Stepmother tears her stepson's head off by slamming the lid of a chest on it. Then she loosely reattaches the severed head, props the body up at the table, and gets her biological daughter to smack him in the face, making her think she's accidentally decapitated her half-brother. Then the stepmother cooks and serves him to her husband.

Overall,  I enjoyed the collection. These are stories that survived as folklore for centuries before being collected for posterity by the Grimms. They are very different creatures than modern fiction, but they represent a literary tradition that's been folded into modern fantastical literature.

Pop Culture on a One-Year Delay

So I finally got around to watching the first season of the Game of Thrones TV series over the past week, along with my wife who hasn't read the books.

It was... good. Better than I expected, based on the discussions I'd read where people debated the good and bad points of the adaptation. I'd half-expected giggling naked women to be constantly flitting on- and off-screen, and we didn't get that. Not all of the time, at least.

The very first episode, except for one major reservation, I thought was as good as any one-hour introduction to A Song of Ice and Fire could be.

In Episode 1 there was a laughable amount of exposition, but that probably couldn't have been avoided. Amusing factoid: Apparently Jaime saying to Cersei "As your brother, I must warn you..." was dubbed in after initial audiences didn't realize they were siblings (despite it being explicitly stated in at least one other scene) and so were insufficiently shocked by the episode's finale, where Jaime and Cersei are seen engaging in an activity that one doesn't expect to see siblings engage in.

With loads of characters, some were inevitably destined to be shortchanged. If I hadn't read the books I would have conflated Robb, Theon, and Jon into one character, given that they're barely differentiated and only Jon really got any character development in the first episode. But that's fine, since there's no need yet for the viewer to really know who Robb and Theon are. (It didn't help that the actors who play Robb and Jon look very similar to each other. But that doesn't matter much, since the characters go in very different directions after the first couple of episodes.)

Arya barely said a word in Episode 1 and I thought she came across as the female version of the three redheaded boys from Pixar's Brave. But my wife, who didn't know any of the characters beforehand, quite correctly intuited that Arya was much more like Merida (the lead character) from Brave, so maybe the first episode did a better job than I gave it credit for.

The point is, the first episode didn't try to show everything and introduce us to everyone. And that's OK, because it trusts viewers to stick around and keep watching for at least a couple more episodes, because everything gets made clear in time.

Most of the younger characters looked a bit older than their stated ages in the book, but that's forgivable. Given how often we see Daenerys without any clothes on, it's probably for the best that the actress that plays her is obviously not fourteen years old.

My one reservation about the first episode is the same one that plenty other commenters have had: the Daenerys-Khal Drogo romance got off to a very inept start.  Viewers who are new to the Song of Ice and Fire universe see a big dumb foreigner marry and then rape an obviously terrified blonde girl. Half the audience probably assumed they would get to see Daenerys slaughter Khal Drogo in an awesome scene in some future episode. Bad, bad mishandling of the character.

In the book, Khal Drogo tenderly seduces Daenerys on their wedding night. Now, I'm not going to play the clueless apologist. I'm not going to say that in the book it's not rape. Let's be honest here: Daenerys has been forced into this marriage, and she's clearly going to have to sleep with Drogo at some point. No matter how tender and gentle he is, this sex isn't going to be 100% consensual. But the book portrays Drogo with more nuance than the first episode of the TV show does. Yes, subsequent episodes represent something of an improvement in how their romance is portrayed, but first impressions count for a lot, and the first impression we get here is a bad misstep.

That said, some fans make the case that the TV show is more honest than the book. Khal Drogo is an alpha male from an extremely violent and brutal culture. Speaking realistically, there can't be much doubt that he violently raped countless women before he even set eyes on Daenerys. Showing him being all tender with Daenerys on their wedding night, according to these fans, would be dishonest. I see their point. I still think the TV show could have handled things better.

The rest of Season 1, generally speaking, is very, very good. I'm impressed at how little of the plot complexity was dropped. Scenes are rearranged and dialogue is rewritten, but overall Season 1 follows the novel possibly more closely than any TV or movie adaptation of written source material I've ever seen. (I've heard that Season 2 deviates more, but the changes I know about sound understandable.) Here we see the benefit of adapting a complex novel into a TV season of over 9 hours, rather than a 2 1/2  hour movie that newcomers can barely follow.

One matter that sparked some discussion among fans was the TV show's straightforwardness about Renly's homosexuality. (His sexual orientation is never hinted at in the first book. In the second book, the innuendo is absolutely there if you're looking for it, but I estimate only a 50-50 chance I would've noticed if I hadn't already known about it.) I think it was a good idea for two reasons. First, hinting at his sexuality like in the books might have fallen very flat on TV; it could have slipped across the nebulous line into puerile territory very easily. Better to be direct about it. Second, for the viewer who hasn't read the books it makes it easier to differentiate Renly and Ser Loras from the rest at a time when loads of new characters are being introduced.

One disadvantage of adapting for TV is a much lower budget than a movie would have. That scene in Episode 7 where Khal Drogo is finally persuaded to give a rousing speech about how he's going to invade Westeros and pillage its cities and rape its women and put Daenerys on the throne would probably have a good deal more impact if we'd ever gotten the impression Drogo had more than two dozen warriors at his disposal. In the book, we don't doubt he'd pose a genuine threat to Westeros if he could be persuaded to cross the ocean; on TV, we have to take it mostly on trust.

I have mixed feelings about the scene, also in Episode 7, which has probably attracted more criticism, mockery, and general ridicule than any other scene in the series so far. I am, of course, talking about the Littlefinger Monologue Scene. Lord Peter "Littlefinger" Baelish, who on TV is shown taking a far more substantial interest in the prostitution business than he is in the books, delivers the following instructions to two naked prostitutes who are pretending to have sex with each other:

Slowly. You’re not fooling them, they just paid you. They know what you are. They know it’s all just an act. Your job is to make them forget what they know. And that takes time. You need to … ease into it. Well, go ahead. Ease into it. He’s winning you over in spite of yourself. You’re starting to like this. He wants to believe you. He’s enjoyed his cock since he was old enough to play with it, why shouldn’t you? He knows he’s better than other men. He’s always known it, deep down inside, now he has proof. He’s so good, he’s reaching something deep inside of you that no one even knew was there. Overcoming your very nature.

So far, I don't have any problem with this scene. It's a cool juxtaposition: we understand that while he's ostensibly giving instructions to the prostitutes, he's really talking about himself and Ned Stark (and possibly others), with himself in the role of the prostitute (just replace the word 'cock' with 'honor'), and hinting at the great big betrayal he's going to engineer at the episode's end.

They should have ended the scene right there. But unfortunately, it keeps going. He starts talking about his own inner pain, his wooing of Catelyn and how he lost her to Brandon Stark, and I'm sorry, but that's dumb. I don't see Littlefinger spilling his emotional guts to a couple of prostitutes like that. It's not even necessary; he doesn't say anything in this scene that wasn't also mentioned elsewhere. It's a minute of TV that could easily be cut.

That said -- Verdict for the whole season: Not bad.

A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings
by George R. R. Martin
Published in 1998
Published by Bantam Spectra
ISBN: 0-553-57990-8

Once upon a time, a man named George R. R. Martin decided to try and write epic fantasy without even a whiff of sex or violence. And so I continue my read of Song of Ice and Fire.

Spoilers below!










Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark are dead. The deservedly unpopular King Joffrey is attempting to rule Westeros from King's Landing. Robert's brothers Stannis Baratheon and Renly Baratheon have each proclaimed themselves king; Stannis's claim is that he is the rightful heir, and Renly's claim is who wants a boring, dour man like Stannis as king, anyway? Ned Stark's son Robb has effectively declared the northern half of Westeros independent and styles himself as the King in the North. And Balon Greyjoy has declared himself King of his own little archipelago; he's not powerful enough to rule Westeros, but he does have sufficient military might to make things very difficult for Robb Stark and company.

With all the killing, looting, pillaging, and slaughter going on in Westeros, who has time to notice a little trouble brewing in the far north? Or take notice of the last heir to the previous dynasty as she raises some adorable pets off on another continent?

I have to point out this is the story of a poor country locked in a chaotic civil war in which the combatants do not clearly fall into two easy-to-grasp opposing camps, and loyalties hinge on complex and convoluted histories that a newcomer would find difficult to follow. In other words, this is exactly the type of conflict that is supposed to be difficult for Westerners to understand when it happens in Africa or the Caucasus. And yet not only is Song of Ice and Fire a huge hit among readers, but the TV series Game of Thrones attracts loads of viewers who haven't read a big fat book since graduating from high school. There may be a lesson in there somewhere.

Basically this is the story of political chaos. Westeros is constantly referred to as the "Seven Kingdoms", but I have to admit I don't have the faintest idea what the seven kingdoms are. The political units that factor into this story aren't geographical areas which can be demarcated by lines on a map; they are rival dynasties whose hold on swathes of land and local populations is inevitably tenuous and temporary. People don't have nationalities; they have allegiances. (This, by the way, is how geopolitics worked pretty much everywhere in the real world until relatively recently.)

Political chaos is horrific to live through, but it makes for some fascinating reading. I devoured A Clash of Kings in about a week.

Here are some disconnected random thoughts, in alphabetical order by name of the most prominent character therein:

• I mentioned the all-encompassing importance of bloodlines back when I discussed A Game of Thrones. Here, I was reminded again that while the little people might fight and die in this war, it's really the upper classes that truly matter. Every viewpoint character comes from the nobility (except Davos, who was born a commoner and elevated to the upper classes) and while there are a couple of commoner characters who get decent character development, they only matter insofar as they are important to the highborn viewpoint characters.
• I couldn't have been the only one absolutely astonished that Joffrey made it to the end of the second book alive. He's in a very precarious situation and too stupid to realize it. That said, he's one of the few villains I can think of who can be annoying and incompetent without having the narrative suffer because of it. He's being propped up by competent people but still has enough power to do real damage when he feels like it -- as Ned Stark would attest if his head were still attached. 
• Melisandre is creepy. (I don't expect to hear much in the way of disagreement.) She's also the first actual wizard to appear in this series. Prior to Melisandre's grand entrance, overt fantasy elements had been very muted in the series, appearing only in the form of ice zombies (or whatever they're called) and a couple of baby dragons. (I'm not convinced Mirri Maz Duur from the first book/season actually did anything a traditional faith healer from a real-world premodern culture couldn't have done.) The introduction of a character using actual unmistakable magic is slightly jarring. It doesn't help that as a magical assassin, Melisandre is carrying out her assassinations by just about the most stomach-churningly weird method imaginable.
• You can say that there are few moral absolutes and many shades of gray in Martin's characters, but it sure seems that anyone with Ned Stark DNA in their blood is pretty much an unambiguous good guy. (The following books may well prove me wrong. Maybe Rickon is destined for evil.)
• Sansa Stark annoyed the heck out of me for most of the first book. She was a prissy princess type and not terribly self-aware about it. That changed near the end of A Game of Thrones, when she could only look at the situation she was in and think, Well, being a delicate princess has worked out really goddamned well for me, hasn't it? I respected her in A Clash of Kings, which shows how good Martin is at character development.
• Theon is truly a world-class idiot, and faking Bran and Rickon's deaths proves it. I understand how it was meant to help him in the short term, but because he had no idea where Bran and Rickon were or what they were up to, he had no way of knowing they wouldn't just pop up alive after he put their alleged severed heads on display, causing him to be laughed out of Winterfell. As it happened, it was pure luck that they didn't resurface until after Theon's world came crashing down around him. It's a testament to George R. R. Martin's writing skill that I do not believe he had Theon do this simply as a dumb plot device to make Catelyn and everyone else believe B + R had been killed, because this level of stupidity is totally in character for this dunderhead as he's been written. I've been reading and enjoying Leigh Butler's reactions as she reads the book for the first time, and she sums up Theon nicely: The sheer level of havoc Theon has managed to wreak just through incompetence, arrogance and insecure panic is staggering. It would almost be funny if it weren’t for the appalling collateral damage that has resulted. Seriously, it’s like reading a comedy of errors written by Charles Manson.

I haven't seen the TV series, although I've read up on it online, including all the debates about how the series deals with sex, the narrative changes from the book, and so on. I've seen a couple of scenes on YouTube, and for the most part they're done quite well. Here's Ned Stark's death as shown on TV -- I can't find any fault with how it plays out.

I can't fault many of the changes in the narrative as A Clash of Kings was adapted to the screen. In the book, Robb Stark shows up for a couple of scenes early on before disappearing 'off-screen' for the remainder, which is fine in a book but an absolute no-no in a TV show. And Jaime Lannister spends literally the entire book chained up in Robb Stark's dungeon, which again doesn't play well on television. Some changes were inevitable. And some things that aren't in the books, such as scenes between Arya Stark and Lord Tywin, strike me as such a good idea that Martin must be kicking himself for not writing them into ACOK in the first place.

But something I kept noticing was the ever-present TV makeover of ugly people. I came across this image linked to by TVTropes:

But that's not all. There's Dagmer Cleftjaw, so called in the books because he's got a massive battle scar that splits his face in half. On TV he looks like this:

But the crowning achievement in TV makeovers must be the one given to Tyrion Lannister, who in the books is hideously ugly. Martin reminds us of this every chance he gets.  And this is before he gets a massive facial scar at the end of A Clash of Kings that puts him into "Phantom of the Opera" territory.

Here's what Tyrion looks like on TV, and therefore in the minds of the vast majority of people who recognize the name "Tyrion Lannister" at all:

So, uh, yeah. I'm not trying to bash the TV series or actor Peter Dinklage. I'm just pointing out that those TV makeup people can really work wonders.

A Wild Sheep Chase

A Wild Sheep Chase
by Haruki Murakami
English translation by Alfred Birnbaum
Published in 1989.
Published by Kodansha International Ltd.
ISBN (Vintage International Edition): 0-375-71894-X

Our nameless protagonist works at an advertising agency in Tokyo. His wife has just left him, and now he is dating a young woman with stunningly perfect ears. One day he designs an ad campaign that utilizes a seemingly innocent picture of some sheep at a ranch in Hokkaido. He had received this picture from an estranged friend of his, called the Rat. This picture sets the book's main plot in motion.

Things get very, very weird.

A Wild Sheep Chase is my second Murakami, after Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (which he wrote later). I didn't realize it at the time, but AWSC is the final entry in a trilogy  of which the first two volumes never became well-known outside of Japan. Reading Wikipedia I feel Murakami enthusiasts consider AWSC a bridge between Murakami's early work and his later, more well-known period.

As the plot of AWSC is entirely self-contained, you can read it without ever bothering with the rest of what is apparently known as the Trilogy of the Rat. (The fact that it was written as Part 3 of 3 might explain some narrative oddities, like the subplot involving the dead girl that is dropped early on and never mentioned again.) All one needs to know is that there's an entire history out there involving the protagonist, the Rat, and the bartender J, and everything else becomes clear in the novel.

Or not so clear, as the case may be. AWSC contains some fine Murakami surrealism, and it's often not entirely clear what is happening. At least I'm sure the plot will appear simple and straightforward if I just type it out in simple sentences:

Hero works for ad agency in Tokyo. One day the representative of a reclusive right-wing political figure comes to the office. The photo of some sheep grazing that the hero innocently inserted into an ad is of very grave concern to the shadowy organization that the mysterious man represents. Particularly that one sheep, with the star-shaped mark. The man commands our hero to leave his job, provides him with a large stipend, and tasks him to track down the sheep, else the hero's life will be made HORRIBLY DIFFICULT. All the hero has to go on is that his friend the Rat sent him the picture. Fortunately his magical-eared girlfriend is willing to come along to help.

There, that's marvelously straightforward, isn't it? And it continues to be thus as Murakami's hero progresses toward his goal: the sheep, in whatever form it may exist in.